Ameriprise Financial, Inc. AMP

Key data

The business

Ameriprise is a wealth manager wearing three hats. The big one, Advice & Wealth Management, is the advisor platform handling money for affluent households, the client with a couple million saved who wants someone else to run it. Ameriprise charges a yearly fee on the assets in those wrap accounts, and separately earns a spread on the cash clients leave sitting in the door. The second hat, Columbia Threadneedle, runs mutual funds and institutional money for a management fee. The third, retirement and protection, is a legacy book of annuities and life insurance that throws off cash but swings with markets. The moat is the advisor relationship: once a household's financial life sits inside Ameriprise, it rarely leaves, and the assets compound with the market whether or not anyone lifts a finger. The engine that matters is the first hat, and it has been running hot as advisor productivity and client assets climb.

The numbers

Revenue set a record at $5.0 billion in the June quarter, up 11.6% from a year ago, and net income of $1.1 billion lifted diluted earnings to $11.98. The number analysts track is the adjusted operating figure, which strips out market noise: that came in at $11.07, ahead of the $10.81 expected, the fourth straight quarter above forecast. This time GAAP earnings ran above the adjusted number, a sign markets did the firm a favor rather than the reverse.

Step back and the shape is a business that grew revenue from $13.4 billion in 2021 to $18.9 billion in 2025, about 9% a year, through one ugly year in 2023 when GAAP profit fell to $2.6 billion. Earnings per share tell a better story than net income because of what management does with the cash. Buybacks ran $2.9 billion in 2025, up from $2.4 billion the year before, so while net income grew 4.7%, per-share earnings grew 9.8%. That five-point wedge is the whole capital-return machine in one line, and it has run every year for a decade. That engine, the watch-item last time, held: the share count shrank again and per-share earnings again outran profit. First half 2026 already sits at $21.66 of per-share earnings, pacing well ahead of last year.

Consensus has FY2027 earnings at $51.67, under 11 times today's price, and FY2028 near $57. Whether that is cheap turns on the cash spread holding. Priced on repeatable wealth-management fees it looks inexpensive. Priced on a rate cycle that may be turning, less so.

Management

Leadership and capital discipline have been consistent since the 2005 American Express spin, with shares out shrinking relentlessly and the dividend rising yearly. What the record shows this year is one-directional selling. Insiders sold $47.9 million across 19 transactions over the last twelve months and bought nothing, with the two largest sales totaling $8.8 million and $5.8 million landing July 27 and 28, right after the Q2 print and within 2% of the all-time high. Plan status is not disclosed in the filings provided. Zero buys against nineteen sells, clustered at the high, is the tell.

How it fails or surprises you

The compounding runs faster than the multiple (right tail). If equity markets hold and advisors keep pulling in net new assets, wrap fees compound on a bigger base while the share count falls another 3% a year. Put mid-teens EPS growth on 11 times forward earnings and the re-rate toward the peer 19 times is worth more than the downside. The print to watch is client assets and wrap flows each quarter.

The cash spread is a rate bet in disguise. A meaningful slice of pretax profit is the spread earned on client cash, and that income falls when the Fed cuts. Several cuts through 2027 would pull down the highest-margin dollar the firm makes, right as consensus models it roughly flat. Watch net investment income: two soft quarters there breaks the cheap-multiple case.

The quiet third hat swings the earnings. The clean wealth story ignores the annuity and protection book, which is exactly what dragged GAAP profit to its $2.6 billion trough in 2023. Markets flattered this quarter and can reverse. The fact the read explains least well is why net income barely grew in 2025 while revenue and EPS both climbed, and the answer sits in that volatile book.

Closing thoughts

The distribution here is not a coin flip on one event. It is a good business bought at a discount, where the edge is that the market prices the durable wealth franchise and the rate-sensitive book as one average thing. If the spread holds and markets cooperate, you own a mid-teens compounder at 11 times earnings with a share-shrinking machine underneath. If rates fall hard and markets wobble together, the annuity book and the cash spread bite at once, and the cheap multiple was cheap for a reason. The fatter tail is the upside, because the balance sheet and the buyback survive the downside. The discount to peers has not closed, still about 11 times next year's earnings against roughly 19 for the group.

The bet is still that Ameriprise keeps turning ordinary well-off Americans into clients whose money it manages and charges a yearly fee on, and keeps them for decades, and that their cash keeps earning while rates stay high. What breaks it is a rate cycle turning down faster than the fee base grows. Watch net investment income against wrap-fee revenue quarter to quarter, and if the first falls while the second stalls, the story you bought is not the story you own.